Once again the three Baltic
nations—Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—are at a momentous
juncture in their long and arduous history for national and
cultural survival. Like the legendary phoenix, the Baltic people
are rising from the ashes of destruction and oppression inflicted
on them by two dictatorial powers during and after World War II.
At best ignored as small and unimportant, at worst bartered
against their will as inconsequential in the grand scheme of the world, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are now demanding to be
heard.

I. A Brief Background

Lithuanians and Latvians are
descendants of Aistians, the name given by scholars to the tribes
called Aestiorum gentes by Tacitus (A.D. 56-120). Linguistically
they belong to the distinct Indo-European family of Balts, based
on Pliny the Elder's (A.D. 23-79) term Baltia for the area which
they settled on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Estonians
speak a Finno-Ugric language.

Lithuanian culture to this day is
a unique synthesis of ancient pagan traditions, fervent
Christianity, and a decidedly Western modernism. Ancient
mythology, folk art and customs remain a source of inspiration
for various creative efforts, thus providing continuity and a
strong sense of identity for its people.

Political organization of the
Lithuanian people started in the 12th century, giving rise to
independent powerful chiefs, or dukes. One of them, Mindaugas,
united the separate principalities to found the Lithuanian
medieval state in 1236. He is also credited with stemming the
Tartar drive to Central Europe. In the 14th century, during the
reign of Vytautas the Great, Lithuania's borders extended from
the Baltic to the Black Sea. In the flux of history, the powerful rulers of Russia, Prussia and Austria partitioned most
of Europe. The last partition of 1795 placed most of ethnographic
Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia under Russian rule.

But as empires disintegrated, the wave of national consciousness that
swept Europe stirred in the
Baltic provinces as well. During World War I, at the collapse of
the Russian and German empires, the Baltic people seized the
historic opportunity. On February 16, 1918, a National Council in
Vilnius declared Lithuania independent and " . . . to be
freed from any unions with other nations which previously had
existed."1 Estonia and
Latvia declared their independence on February 24, 1918, and
November 18, 1918, respectively.

Peace treaties were signed with
neighboring states and other European countries. On July 28,
1922, the United States recognized de jure the three
Baltic states, which had already became members of the League of
Nations the previous year. The treaty with the Soviet Union,
signed by Lenin's ministers on July 12, 1920, is as follows:

The city of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.
Photo by V. Kapočius

In conformity with the right declared by the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet
Republic of all peoples to a free self-determination, including the right to
full secession from the State of which they were a part, Russia
recognizes without any reserve the sovereignty and independence
of the State of Lithuania with all juridical consequences resulting from such
recognition, and voluntarily and forever renounces all sovereign rights
possessed by Russia over the Lithuanian people and territory.
The fact that Lithuania was
ever under Russian sovereignty does not place the Lithuanian people and their
territory under any obligation to Russia.2

The Soviet Union signed similar
peace treaties with Estonia on February 2, 1920, and with Latvia
on August 11, 1920.

On the basis of the above treaty
with Lithuania, a Pact of Amity and Non-Aggression was signed on
September 28, 1926, mutually agreeing . . . to respect their
respective sovereignty and also their integrity and territorial inviolability in all drcumstances.3

The validity of this treaty was renewed on April 4, 1934, to be extended to December 31, 1941.4

Although now small (approximately
2.5 million inhabit-ants, and 21,000 sq. miles) compared to its
former historical territory, Lithuania made enormous strides in
responsible statehood during its brief life of independence. The
entire country was energized by the spirit of renewal in
socio-economic, as well as in educational-cultural areas. A
radical land reform was implemented, accompanied by innovative
and expanded agricultural practices. Cooperatives were introduced
and a successful world market was developed for its products. It
was able to maintain a gold standard despite world-wide
depression. An advanced social security system was implemented,
together with expanded public health care and facilities. Cumpulsory
primary education, in conjunction with various adult
consciousness raising pro-grams and organizations, eradicated the
remnants of a tsarist legacy—illiteracy. A network of
secondary and special schools sprang up, together with the
establishment of universities, institutes and academies of
higher learning, as well as conservatories and art schools. The
cultural life was vibrant, a sports conscious youth was athletic
and enthusiastic and all found expression in appropriate
exhibitions and athletic competitions, not only on home soil, but
abroad as well.

In all three Baltic states
minorities (Jews, Russians, Poles, and others) were protected by
law and were given equal political, economic and cultural rights,
including freedom of religion and freedom to establish and
maintain schools in their native languages, which were
subsidized wholly or in part by the government.

In general, the independent Baltic
states enjoyed a period of intense reconstructive activity and of
relatively high stability. The future seemed bright, with promise
to join other civilized Western democracies as their equals in
all respects. But, it was not to be.

II. World War II

By 1939 most of Europe was
wallowing in amoral political chaos, its leaders embracing the
more expedient "policy of appeasement" and drifting towards an imminent war. As though prescient of events to come,
in January 1939, the President of Lithuania was empowered to
declare the country's neutrality, should the need arise. Yet this
sane and judicious act did not safeguard it from becoming a pawn
in the Machiavellian schemes of Hitler and Stalin. Thus, having
just invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Germany made repeated
overtures to Lithuania to exploit the highly sensitive political
situation by offering military assistance, if necessary, as well
as assurance that Lithuania need fear no difficulties from the
Soviet Union.

Germany and the Soviet Union had
just signed a secret

Non-Aggression Pact on August 23,
1939, dividing Eastern Europe into "spheres of
influence":

1. In the event of a territorial
and political rearrangement in the areas belonging to the Baltic
States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the northern
boundary of Lithuania shall represent the boundary of the spheres
of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. In this connection the
interest of Lithuania in the Vilna area is recognized by each
part.5

In this game of chess two former
enemies were disposing of nations as though at whim: in the
course of a month Lithuania was bandied first to the German
"sphere," then to the Soviet "sphere" with
the agreed price of $7.5 million in gold paid by the U.S.S.R. to
Germany. On September 28, 1939, V. Ribbentrop and V. Molotov
signed an amended protocol, which reads in part:

The Secret Additional Protocol
signed on August 23, 1939, shall be amended in item 1 to the
effect that the territory of the Lithuanian state falls to the
sphere of influence of the U.S.S.R. . . . As soon as the
Government of the U.S.S.R. shall take special measures on
Lithuanian territory to protect its interests, the present
German-Lithuanian border, for the purpose of a natural and simple
boundary delineation, shall be rectified in such a way that the
Lithuanian territory situated in to the southwest of the line
marked on the attached map falls to Germany.
Further it is declared that the
economic agreements now in force between Germany and Lithuania
shall not be affected by the measures of the Soviet Union
referred to above.6

While the aggregate of these
agreements seems innocuous in tone and solicitous of peace in
Europe, nevertheless they reveal a deadly game of deceit played
with the unsuspecting, as well as with each other.

Effigy of Stalin and Hitler denouncing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
Photo By V. Kapočius.

When both powers invaded Poland
in September 1939, the Soviet Union, having taken Vilnius and its
territory, transferred it to Lithuania in exchange for a forced
agreement to garrison Red Army troops on its soil. At the same
time the Soviet renewed assurances of friendly relations and
non-intervention in Lithuania's internal affairs, as well as
respect for its independence.

The First Soviet Occupation.
After the onset of World War II the Baltic states experienced
three successive occupations: June 15,1940, by the Soviet Union;
June 1941-1944 by Germany; and in 1944 again by the Soviet Union.
All three were violent in their oppression, genocidal murders,
and mass deportations. The tragic modern history of the Baltic
countries has not yet been fully recorded. But the information
available so far shows the horrific methods— other than warfare—that supposedly civilized governments carried out to
destroy legitimate nations. It is conservatively estimated that
Lithuania lost 500,000 inhabitants since June 1940.7

On June 15, 1940, the Red Army
invaded Lithuania accompanied by the NKVD, and on August 3, 1940,
forcefully and by fraud incorporated it as a constituent Soviet
Republic.

Individual arrests, liquidations,
and deportations began the night of July 11-12, 1940, when 2,000
people were arrested and never released. They were leaders of
political parties, high government officials, influential public
figures, and included both men and women.

The first mass deportation began
at 4 a.m. on June 14, 1941. It is estimated that during several
days between 30,000 and 40,000 Lithuanian men, women and
children were packed in sealed boxcars and deported to Siberia
and the Arctic regions of Russia. Many did not survive the
journey. While the figures are not precise, facts and events are
incontrovertible and are supported by documents and lists found
in NKVD upon the hasty retreat of the Soviets from

Lithuania when attacked
unexpectedly by Germany on June 22, 1941. The Soviet plan was to
deport one-third of the population. The inhumanity of the system
is obvious from an excerpt of instructions on procedures of
handling deportees:

In view of the fact that a large
number of deportees must be arrested and distributed in special
camps and that their families must proceed to special settlements
in distant regions, it is essential that the operation of removal
of both the members of the deportee's family and its head should
be carried out simultaneously, without notifying them of the
separation confronting them. . . . only at the station of
departure shall the head of the family be placed separately from
his family in a car specially intended for heads of family.8

Before withdrawing from
Lithuania, the NKVD murdered or took with them to Russia
political prisoners incarcerated throughout the country: of
120,000 only approximately 300 were known to have survived.

The German Occupation. The
German attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, was greeted
with relief and hope: relief, because it meant the end of a
regime of Soviet terror; hope, because a provisional government
had been formed by the Lithuanian National Committee even as a country-wide revolt broke out against the fleeing Soviets.

But by August 5, 1941, it was
clear that Nazi Germany had its own political agenda for
Lithuania. It demanded that Lithuania back its war effort; that
it organize a Lithuanian Nazi party to spread its doctrine
through the educational system and the press; and that it form a
Lithuanian leadership to follow Nazi dictates. Lithuanians
successfully resisted all these plans, but needless to say, at
heavy cost.

The youth refused to join the
"Hitlerjugend" or the "Arbeitsdienst."
Teachers and professors refused to inculcate the Nazi doctrines.
Consequently, by early 1943 universities and all other
institutions of higher learning were closed. The press went
underground. Lithuanians became adversaries of the German Reich
and engaged in passive and active resistance. The Nazi doctrines
in general, and especially its racial policies towards Jews and
Poles, were thwarted by whatever means available under the
circum-stances.

In early July of 1941 the
Lithuanian Provisional Government made efforts to stop the
Jewish massacre by Nazi Germans. In October 1941 the Conference
of Lithuanian Bishops condemned the persecution of Jews from the
pulpit and in writing to the German authorities. Other prominent
Lithuanians—among them the former President of independent
Lithuania, Dr. K. Grinius—continued their protests in 1942, but
incurred punishment by house arrest, or by deportation to
Germany. A number of Jews were helped by private individuals who
risked personal danger and reprisals. In Vilnius alone more than
2,000 Jews were saved.

By the winter of 1942-43 the
Germans had sustained severe military losses and decided that
Lithuania should provide a force of 200,000-300,000 men. The plan
failed. A clandestine press disseminated appeals by the
underground political leadership to resist mobilization:

We shall give no victims for
immolation to the Germans. . . our nation would be placed in the
position of an enemy of America and England, an enemy of the
countries which still recognize the independence of our State and
in which our legations function to this day . . . Everyone whom
this mobilization affects. . . has the full right, guaranteed by
international law, and a national duty, safeguarded by the
Lithuanian soul and spirit, to disregard the mobilization order.9

Youths went into hiding.
Nevertheless several thousand were swept up in the streets and
forcibly deported to Germany to be put into German uniforms. Some were lucky to desert or to surrender to
Western Allies.
Finally, it is appropriate to point out—with a sense of
integrity—that only Poland and Lithuania (of all the German
occupied countries) did not provide Germany with S.S. legions.

Attrocities were committed in
retaliation for Lithuanian resistance against the German military.
In one such case, the German police surrounded the village of
Pirčiupis on an early morning in June 1944, herded the
inhabitants into a barn, barricaded it, and set it on fire with
incendiary bombs. The entire village was than razed to the
ground.

It is estimated that under the
German occupation approximately 300,000 inhabitants perished in
prisons and forced labor and concentration camps—a high
percentage for a small country.

The Second Soviet Occupations.
By the summer of 1944, Germans were in retreat, and in mid-July
the Soviets again invaded Lithuania. Fearing a renewed
onslaught, those who could, fled to the West, some eventually to
emigrate to the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and
Latin America.

For those who remained, there was
no respite from terror. It resumed with deportations of members
of the June 1941 uprising. From August to December 1944, 37,000
Lithuanians were executed or deported. The tragedy of Pirčiupis
was repeated when, in December 1944, the returning Soviets
destroyed twenty-one villages and murdered their inhabitants in
the region of Merkinė.10

Wave after wave of deportations
and mass murders continued m succeeding years. Reprisals and
purges continued through 1949 with three major waves of deportations sweeping the country on May 22, 1949, March 24-27,
1949, and in June 1949. The latter deportations were directed
against the clergy and farmers. The farmers were liquidated in
conjunction with the farm collectivization program. Yet, it was
not merely an expedient socio-economic measure—it was genocide
as well.11

The brutal agricultural
collectivization was only one aspect of the total Sovietization
plan. The country's industry, economy and financial basis were
equally disrupted and exploited for the benefit of the Soviet
Union. An intense Russification program was implemented in
schools and all levels. Lithuania history was distorted, its
cultural heritage degraded and destroyed, the arts and the press subordinated to propaganda for communism, and religious freedom
denied. The faithful were persecuted, priests were murdered or
met "accidental" death; churches were closed, turned
into storage depots, or at best into secular places of
entertainment, e.g. concert halls or museums.

Resistance. The world at
large knows relatively little of Lithuanian resistance against
its three successive occupiers:

the Soviets (1940-1941) the
Germans (1941-44), and again the Soviets (1944-1952). These were
probably the bloodiest years in Lithuania's history.

The armed resistance to the second
Soviet occupation arose spontaneously, was wide-spread, and
lasted eight years. While it was especially strong in 1945-47 when it had an estimated 30,000 fighters, nevertheless it failed
because:

partisan leaders miscalculated
their resources and misinterpreted the intentions of Western powers by counting on support from Great Britain and the United
States; and 2) without such support partisan war could not withstand "the
total-war strategy of the Soviets."12 It is believed that approximately 50,000
perished on either side. That the partisans failed against such overwhelming odds is not surprising; that they fought for eight
years is extraordinary.

For nearly forty years after it
was finally crushed, Lithuanian resistance remains a significant
reminder of the national will to survive, and a powerful impetus in
the ongoing political thrust for independence.

Lithuanians pay homage to the remains of partisans who continued the struggle for
Lithuanian independence after the Soviets re-occupied their country in 1944.
Photo by. E. Šulaitis.

A deep-rooted opposition to the
Soviet occupation persists. In the 1970s national and religious
dissent intensified giving rise in March 1972 to "The
Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania," which then
continued to appear four to seven times a year. It was the first
clandestine publication since the suppression in 1952 of the
resistance movement and its press. Some issues were translated
into Russian and disseminated among other dissident groups in the
Soviet Union. In essence, "The Chronicle" became the
mouthpiece for the Lithuanian civil and human rights movement.

III. Emigres Efforts and U.S. Response

Various Baltic organizations in
the free world—the Supreme Committee for the Liberation of
Lithuania, the Lithuanian American Community, the Estonian
American National Council, the American Latvian Association, the
Joint Baltic American National Committee, and others— continued
to solicit governments (e.g. the United States, Canada,
Australia) and international bodies (the United Nations, the
European Parliament, the World Court) to recognize and support
the Baltic nations' legitimate quest for regaining independence.

One of the most potent instruments
of moral support over the decades has been the policy of
Nonrecognition of Forcible Seizure of Territory (the Stimson
Doctrine of 1932) which the U.S. State Department adopted on
July 23, 1940, after the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Latvia,
and Lithuania. Under the nonrecognition policy their respective
diplomatic and consular activities continue in the United States.
At the end of the Second World War, the nonrecognition policy was
extended into the realm of human rights, when the Western Allies
refused to consider Baltic refugees as "Soviet
citizens," thus legally preventing their forcible
repatriation and probable imprisonment, if not death, by the
Soviet Union.13 U.S. officials, including Presidents, have
made public statements reaffirming the right of the Baltic states
to independence, and have given assurances that the 1975 Helsinki—Final Act would in no way affect the
nonrecognition policy.

Over the years most European
states, as well as Canada and Australia, have followed the
nonrecognition policy of the United States, except for Finland
and Sweden, whose positions remained ambiguous until recently, when Sweden decided to favor Lithuania's independence.

In the presence of momentous
changes taking place in the Baltic republics and in the Soviet
Union itself, the U.S. appeared to re-evaluate its previously
unequivocal moral support for the Baltic people. At one point the administration
of President Bush included the political struggle
for Baltic states' independence among "... (Gorbachev's)
internal political problems . . . "14 thus leading some to believe that it
subordinated the policy of nonrecognition to support for
Gorbachev and his programs of "glasnost" and
"perestroika."

However, soon after Lithuania
declared the restoration of its independence from the Soviet
Union on March 11, 1990, the Bush administration issued a
statement urging the Soviet Union to "respect the will"
of the Lithuanian people and to enter into "immediate
constructive negotiations" with the Republic of Lithuania.15